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Be not afeard

Category Archives: Travel

What’s a girl to do when her second flight of the day has been delayed for more than an hour (after a day of nothing but travel delays, it seems)?

Blog about travel. What else?

(Fair warning, I’ve been up for far too long today dealing with various travel issues, so this may wander a bit. But it’s a travel post, so I suppose that’s appropriate.)

On my (mostly mental) bucket list, “Visit 6 Continents” is pretty much at the top. (I’d make it seven, but I’m not quite sure how I’d be able to get to Antarctica, so that’s listed as a “+100 XP” bonus.) So far, I’ve hit two: North America (natch) and Asia (thanks, college Thailand trip!).

Recently, though, I’ve been thinking that it might be better to make it a goal to visit a certain number of countries. Because quite frankly, even though I’ve been to two continents, I’ve only been to three countries and one U.S. territory: U.S. (again, natch), Thailand, South Korea, and Puerto Rico.

Yeah, that’s right; I’ve never been to Canada. For someone from Montana who went to school in Washington state, this is apparently kind of unusual. (As a Montana native, however, I still never visited Glacier National Park until I was in my 20s, so in that light, not going to Canada is probably less surprising. Though I’ve been to Yellowstone a couple dozen times now.)

But the point is, it’s one thing to step foot on every continent; it’s another to visit a wide swath of the countries on those continents. And really, that’s more what I’m interested in. I’d rather knock out a list of countries and fill up my passport and hit all the continents as a result of that list.

There’s more than just being stranded at an airport to account for this. Every now and again, I see this craft pop up on Pinterest where you essentially create a scratch-off map; once you visit a country, you scratch it off as a way to visualize how many places you’ve gone. Other takes on that idea include pasting pictures you took in those countries onto their respective places on the map.

Now, I’m not that crafty. So even if I visited every country in the world, I don’t think that would end up on my wall (though a collage of all the photos might). But I do really like that idea. And with our current travel technology, it seems like it should be easier than ever to achieve that goal.

But, as with most things in life, the financial cost comes into play — big time. So what are some tips and tricks y’all would offer to someone who’s wanting to go on an adventure at some point down the road?

In the meantime, I’ll be sitting here at the Denver airport, eating some food from Panda Express (I told you it’s here, Marie!) and waiting for my flight that feels like it might never leave while watching people load up for a trip to Heathrow. (Incidentally, London is definitely on my to-visit list.)